Two kids means two kids who need to eat in two separate but equally demanding ways, two sets of diapers with equally demanding diaper rashes, two kids crying equally inconsolably -and all at once. Me: hungry, tired, can't pee holding a baby. It was a challenging one yesterday. When Mrs. Ditchman came home from work there was no cheerful "Hi honey, I'm home!" but rather an ass-handing, knowing nod: "Hard, huh?"

My work was passable: the kids were still alive. I tried not to complain. Everything else can be hard enough, but it's frustrating not to be able to get anything done you'd planned on. Oh well. Life gets hard so that your expectations are pointedly lowered -it's one of the things that makes the smiling child so significant as a be-all, end-all necessity. Also, tv is awesome.

Tv. Unless the sentence structure demands it, I try not to uppercase the thing because its never really deserved it, but I will admit that yesterday I was grateful for its empty, time-sucking existence. I had bought a new Little Einsteins DVD for just this occasion, when the Little Ditchman needed a goodly-size distraction while I managed the other digger. Yesterday's disc: "The Christmas Wish," which involves Annie not getting her gift from Santa because it fell off the sleigh. (Bummer!) The other kids all get "wish boxes," you see, in which you get to wish for anything you want and it happens right there in a *poof*! So did the other kids just wish for a million more wish boxes and hand one to Annie? No. They used their wishes in order to get to the top of Mt. Everest, where her gift was sitting, half-buried in the ice. So did they wish for extra oxygen canisters and climbing gear to get there? No. So did Rocket just fly them to the top and pluck it off with his grab-nabber? No. He turned into a snow mobile and plodded uphill through the snow. And then when Annie finally got her wish box, what do you think she wished for? She wished that she could be with her friends on Christmas, which she already was doing. Silly girl. What a waste of wishes. (Oh, Henry...)

So I was unimpressed, but everyone was quiet in the living room for twenty-five minutes and it was awesome. My legitimate wish of the moment came true, which may have been in the mind of the Disney producers all along. (And God bless them, every one!) I suppose there's a moral construct in which the wishing for what one already has is a good and upright thing, however it's nonsensical. It's enough to just be thankful, without which one can never be happy.

I'm thankful for my wife, who can handle this child-rearing work like a Tiger Woods golf swing. Me? I swing a hammer, and I doubt she'd much like that, either, though it's good to switch roles from time to time for the perspective. I suppose God created us to need each other, which would be a funny thing to be thankful for. I admit I'm not particularly grateful that God created me with needs, but I am grateful God created her, for my needs are she, and hers, me. (I hope. Which is another thing entirely.) And I suppose that without this Godly two-by-two construct of needs, there would be no wishing at all, and even less to believe in.


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